The Bridge to Inverfearnie Island
by Ladybug21
Summary: A journey back to Strathfearn in the midst of the war reveals to Ellen McEwen some of the small ways in which Julie's legacy lives on.


Author's Note: All rights and characters belong to Elizabeth Wein. Also, I can only assume that the formal start of the school year at the University of Oxford circa the late 1930s was Michaelmas term (as it is now), so my apologies to any cringing historians out there, if that assumption was incorrect and my epistolary timeline is subsequently skewed a few months off.

* * *

The Bridge to Inverfearnie Island

 _Julia killed in action. Thought you should know. We are back in Strathfearn. Hope all is well._

"What is it?" asked Polly, as she attempted to push a strand of hair behind her ear with one wrist, without dropping any of the bandages clutched between her hands.

Ellen crumpled the message in one shaking fist.

"Nothing," she lied, setting her jaw grimly. "It's nothing."

She did not allow herself to shed a tear until after dinner, when they had been sent back to their quarters. Polly fell asleep almost immediately, as usual. Ellen, meanwhile, sobbed into her pillow as silently as she could.

The infirmary kept her on her feet for the next several days. Ellen usually resented the frantic pacing, the salty tang of blood in the air, the screams of the wounded being brought in after the latest air raids, mangled and matted with plaster dust. It was so different from the tranquility of the willow banks on which she had spent her youth, or the musty-smelling cosiness of the libraries in which she had spent her fantasies. This week, however, she welcomed the whirling chaos. Rushing to and fro down the corridors all day long for more medical supplies kept her mind off of other matters, and in the evenings, she threw herself into her bed and embraced the instant slumber that came of being so bone-weary.

Still, she put in a request for leave for the following Saturday. And, when Saturday came, she woke while all of the other nurses were still breathing evenly in the dark, and caught the first train to Edinburgh.

Ellen had only ever been to Brig O'Fearn in the summer, yet even stripped bare by the chill of winter, the town hadn't changed a jot. It was slightly jarring to Ellen that overcast afternoon, how the rest of the world went on its merry way, while meanwhile civilians with shattered limbs and glassy expressions were being carted by the truckload into her hospital back in London. She thought of Euan, who had gotten dysentery while waiting to be evacuated from Dunkirk and arrived back on English soil more dead than alive, and she suspected that, if she looked closely enough around the village, she would probably note the absence of many of the other hale young lads her own age. If nothing else, the omnipresent clouds of tension wreathing their parents' faces would be visible enough.

As she strode down the main street, Ellen could sense the heads turning towards her, the whispers as the townspeople registered recognition of both Ellen and the nurse's uniform she now wore. It occurred to her that, even if Euan decided to parade down the street in a smart battledress with his rifle slung over his shoulder, the McEwens would still be nothing more than dirty tinkers to most of the townspeople, from now until eternity.

But people's minds could be changed. The fact that she had come back was in itself evidence of that, Ellen reminded herself, as she crossed the rickety iron footbridge to Inverfearnie Island and sharply rang the doorbell of the library three times.

After a few moments, Mary Kinnaird opened the door.

She didn't look surprised to see Ellen there. Ellen still wasn't used to reading expression in that unusual, flattened face, but she could tell that the former librarian had been expecting her. Judging by the tautness of Mary's midsection against her plain but well-cut dress, Ellen was not all that Mary was expecting, and Ellen reminded herself that she was calling not just on Mary Kinnaird, but also on the wife of the Earl of Strathfearn.

"So you got my message," Mary said finally.

Ellen nodded, her haughty demeanour only just masking how lost she suddenly felt.

Mary watched her sympathetically for a moment, then pulled the door open and stepped out of the way for Ellen.

"I've just put on the kettle for tea, and you look like a cup might do you good," Mary said hesitantly. She relaxed visibly when Ellen nodded. As they made their way silently back to the kitchen, Ellen tried to avoid looking at the display housing the bracelet that had once belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and the empty Reliquary whose destroyed pearls a little girl used to play with, as if they were marbles.

Even the kitchen struck Ellen with memories. She stood in the doorway, taking in the strange familiarity of a room that hadn't changed a jot, despite the global turbulence of the past five years. Ellen almost expected Pinkie to come ambling out from under the table, her tail wagging wildly in the hopeful expectation that Mary Kinnaird would continue to spoil the darling beast rotten, just as Mary had during those weeks in the summer of 1938, when Sandy had recruited Ellen to help document the crumbling Bronze Age log boat. At a gesture from Mary, Ellen pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and took a seat, then made herself useful by stacking to the side of the table a number of half-read books that lay scattered across its surface.

"We came up here when the bombing got too heavy in London," Mary explained to Ellen, spooning tea into the teapot, and setting cups and saucers at the table. "One of the benefits of Sandy holding the title to Strathfearn, I suppose. He didn't want to have to go back to his parents', as they were already housing plenty of people who had lost their homes; we spent most of last week there, until Sandy had to leave for a conference at Cambridge, and it was a bit chaotic. I suppose you'll have to be back in London by Monday?"

Ellen nodded.

"Well, he'll be so sorry to have missed you. But be sure to let us know in advance when you'll be visiting next, so you don't miss each other again," said Mary, and she seemed to truly mean it. "In any event, we asked the school if we could establish ourselves back in the library until it was safer to go back to London, and they were very kind about it. Sandy's been able to keep up with a fair amount of his research, and I've taken over management the library again for the time being, since my successor left to join the war effort. It keeps me busy, which is nice. Some days, I can almost pretend that everything is normal."

Ellen considered pointing out that not everyone could be so lucky, but she held her tongue.

"It seems that congratulations are in order," she said instead to Mary, who blushed slightly, a hand unconsciously moving to rest on the slight swell of her stomach.

"Thank you," she said. "We're unbelievably excited. Sandy comes up with at least five possible names every day. I have to swat down his more outlandish ideas; it wouldn't be fair to saddle a little girl with a name like Boudicca or Sgàthach. And besides..."

Mary's smile faltered as her words died on the air, their unspoken weight hanging heavy in the silence: _And besides, we already know what we would name a little girl_.

"Well, we can't wait, in any case," Mary concluded.

Ellen frowned thoughtfully.

"If it's a boy, you should name him David," she recommended.

Mary raised an eyebrow.

"It's a solid family name, and I'm sure Sandy's brother would be flattered," she reasoned. "Why David?"

Ellen shrugged with practiced carelessness, but to herself, she thought, _For Davie Balfour_ , and tried to ignore the accompanying pang.

"Hm," said Mary, glancing at Ellen as if she could tell that a deeper meaning was being purposefully withheld. "Well, it's in the running, certainly."

She sat down in the chair opposite Ellen as she waited for the hot water to finish boiling.

"And how have you been? Enjoying London, I hope, in spite of everything?"

Ellen shrugged again.

"It has its highs and lows," she said simply. There were, of course, the endless days of fear and exhaustion and pain and death, so much death. But Mary didn't need that explained to her.

"You must miss your family, I imagine. There's an Emergency Hospital Service facility over on the other side of the town now, you know. Perhaps you'd be able to transfer back here, and be closer to them?"

Ellen sniffed disdainfully.

"Southerners are rubbish at distinguishing between northern accents, especially when Scots is tossed in the mix," she informed her host. "As long as I don't slip into cant, to most people in London, I'm just another poor girl from Scotland."

Mary shot her a small smile that Ellen deigned to return with something less than a scowl.

"Well, that's something, at least. And you enjoy your work?"

"It is what it is," Ellen answered, since it felt unpatriotic to speak ill of the war effort, even if she well and truly hated being a nurse. "How did you know where to find me?"

"Your father," Mary replied. "I saw him in the village back in the summer and asked after you. Both of you," she clarified. "Anyway, he told me that you were stationed at Guy's, and I just had to hope that you hadn't been transferred out of Southwark when I heard about... when I got in touch."

Ellen could sense the unspoken questions and answers hovering about them, like insects around a lit flame, but still she said nothing. Mary watched her for a moment, then shook a tin of shortbread onto a plate and set it down near Ellen, who finally rallied herself with a deep breath.

"How...?"

"We don't know what happened," Mary replied quietly, so that Ellen did not have to complete the painful question. "The army won't tell us."

Ellen nodded, her throat constricting.

"And the funeral? Has it already happened?"

Mary sighed.

"We're not sure if there will be one. There wasn't..."

Mary choked slightly, and blinked furiously before trying again:

"There wasn't a body to send home."

Perhaps it was fortunate that the kettle began to whistle at that exact moment, so that Mary had an excuse to leave the table. Ellen's vision blurred with belated tears as she stared at the cheerful white polka-dots on the dark green tablecloth under her clasped hands. She rubbed furiously at her eyes while Mary's back was still turned, and had just recomposed herself when Mary brought the teapot over and sat back down. (Mary, however, was clearly not fooled, and simply nudged the plate of biscuits towards Ellen.)

"I have something for you, actually," Mary said suddenly. "From the village postmaster. He said that he had received a few letters since Glenfearn opened, addressed to an Ellen McEwen from a Julia Beaufort-Stuart. The letters being from a member of the Murray family, he didn't want to throw them away, but he didn't know how to contact the recipient. He only recently thought to give them to me, when Sandy and I arrived back here."

She slid several unopened envelopes across the table towards Ellen, who picked them up gingerly, then glanced at Mary.

"Thank you," she said.

"The Upper Reading Room should be empty," Mary told Ellen with a kind smile. "I'll be down here, if you need me."

"I should finish my tea, first," Ellen pointed out.

"No need for that!" Mary said with a small laugh. "The Murray Collection has long since been auctioned off to various museums; there's naught but quiet space for reading in there now. Just take care not to spill on any of the books."

The casual nature of Mary's reminder did not fully strike Ellen until she had ascended to the Upper Reading Room. Standing at the top of the spiral staircase, she was assaulted by another barrage of memories. There were the peaceful ones, of course: sitting quietly at a table for hours, sketching spearpoints for the old Earl of Strathfearn; and later, frantically trying to capture the shapes of bits and pieces of a disintegrating log boat for his grandson. But a sharper, more painful memory cut through those recollections of happiness: that of Mary shrieking at poor Euan for handling any of the artefacts, then dressing down Julie for letting _their kind_ in to see the Murray Collection, and finally calling that damned Angus Henderson to come over to Inverfearnie Island to beat and threaten Euan.

Yet now here Ellen was, being not only permitted but _invited_ by Mary Kinnaird to bring tea into the library.

Ellen shuddered slightly as her thoughts of Henderson slowly subsided. She walked to an armchair bathed in the clear winter light streaming through the adjacent window, footsteps tapping steadily on the polished wooden floor. She carefully placed her teacup and saucer down on the ledge of the leaded casement window, then settled herself into the chair, which was comfortable in the slightly sunken manner of all armchairs that have cradled avid readers for hours at a time. The room was silent and still, except for the wind rustling the leaves outside and the quiet ticking of a clock.

Ellen turned Julie's letters over in her hands for few moments, contemplating the small, dainty, aristocratic hands that had once pressed down on the pages within, creasing them with precision, probably smudging the ink from the pen. When she could no longer bear it, she tore open the top of the first envelope and tugged out the letter, which she smoothed on her lap to read.

 _13 October 1938_

 _Dearest Ellen,_

 _Back at school, and just about bored to tears. Switzerland is lovely, of course, but everything feels somewhat superficial after such an eventful summer. Even the ski instructor that we all found so handsome last term seems dull in comparison, which is something that I never thought I would write! And all of my classes and friends are wonderful, of course, but the fact is that I feel ready to move on with life, several months too early._ _I know I should be cherishing my last year at jolly old Seiler, and I really am grateful to be here. But the word 'cherish' comes from 'cher'_ — _the French word for 'dear'_ — _and it's hard to cherish something completely and unreservedly when the things that you hold most dear are someplace else..._

 _Write to me soon, Ellen. I want to hear all about what you're doing, where you are, how Euan and Pinkie and your family are. I feel that news from you is the only thing that will keep me from languishing entirely on some forsaken mountaintop here in the Alps._

 _Yours,  
Julie_

 _21 January 1939_

 _Dear Ellen,_

 _You know that expression, 'Be careful what you wish for?'_

 _No doubt you saw that this letter was postmarked NOT from Switzerland, but from here on our own shores (well, from England, at least). Not three we_ _eks ago, yours truly — feeling terribly grown-up — placed herself on a train from Edinburgh to Oxford. I've officially started at university, a year early and a term late, in a college named for Lady Margaret Beaufort (yet another of my illustrious ancestors), and in spite of the frantic flurry of paperwork that went into organising such a rushed arrival, I think that all may yet be well._

 _Why, you're probably asking yourself, was all of this necessary? Because Seiler_ _— beloved, ridiculous Seiler_ _— has unceremoniously chucked out almost all of its English and French pupils, as well as one very indignant Scot. They sent us home for Christmas with letters to our parents, explaining that the political situation had become very fraught and that we would be 'well-advised to consider continuing our schooling at a different establishment.' And of course I KNOW that things are politically fraught in Switzerland, but buckets of blood, what even is the POINT of being an historically neutral country, if this is the way things are trending?_

 _I'm sorry, it's just such a bother. I was looking forward to graduating with my friends. But at least my German tutor here at Lady Margaret Hall is a dear, and the other first-year students are mostly kind, especially considering that I'm younger than they are and slipped into their midst at the start of Hilary term. I wish that you could come visit sometime... is that too ludicrous and selfish a thing to want? You'd fit in so WELL here at university, Ellen. The aging-paper smell of our college library alone would send you into a state of ecstasy. And you'd be surrounded by people who love learning as much as you do_ _—_ _the sort of people who'd just as eagerly read Sandy's log boat articles for fun!_

 _I know that you can't come visit, just as well as I know that you likely won't receive any of these nonsensical letters until you're back near Brig O'Fearn. (It's probably for the best if you don't receive any of them at all, honestly, given how I'm driveling on.) But it makes me feel so much less alone to be able to write to you, Ellen, so I'm going to keep on doing just that. I hope that you and your family are well, and give Pinkie an extra oyster from me when you're back on the Fearn._

 _Yours,  
Julie_

 _11 November 1939_

 _Dearest Ellen,_

 _I woke up this morning and sat by my window watching the late autumn clouds drift idly past in a washed-out sky, and I suddenly wished more than anything else in the world that you were here with me. I don't write as often as I should, but it's funny, sometimes beautiful things remind me of you for no apparent reason at all, like hearing the LMH Chapel Choir sing hymns across the quadrangle on Sunday mornings, or the way the April sun makes the uppermost leaves in the trees a brighter and more brilliant green than the ones below, or the whiff of heather that you can smell for a moment when a breeze sweeps across the moors back home. I wonder sometimes if you miss me as much as I miss you. I can't decide whether I hope that you do, or not._

 _I've decided to join the war effort. There, I've written it down, which makes you the first person I've told, even if you're the last who will probably hear the news. Regardless, 'telling' you makes it official in a way that it wasn't a moment ago. (I've always felt that, in a way, once something is written, it becomes a part of your own personal historical record, which makes it more true than things that you don't have the courage to commit to in writing.) I'll say it again, just to prove to myself that I mean it: It's Armistice Day, and we are at war again, and I, Lady Julia Lindsay MacKenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart, have decided to join the war effort. Jamie has enlisted, and so has our eldest brother Davie, and even though their participation is more than enough to fulfill the martial duties expected of our family's historically valiant name, I'm sick and tired of sitting around classrooms, feeling useless. Oxford can wait. At least going and offering my services to my country will shut up the awful old porter of my college. He's convinced that my German tutor is a spy, and from the way he glares at me, I suspect he has his suspicions about me, as well. (Can you even imagine?!) There are many things that I will miss about LMH, but that troll certainly isn't one of them._

 _You must be sick of my speaking so cavalierly about being at university, let alone departing voluntarily; I know I'd be sick of my whinging, if I were in your shoes. But here's my hope for you, Ellen. We're too young to remember it, but everyone says that the Great War upended everyone's preconceived notions of class and propriety and place in society (didn't mean for that to rhyme, but it's written down already, so you're stuck with it). Maybe this war will change things just as much, and the world will shift enough in the right direction that you'll somehow be able to go to university, after everything is over. I hope that life can and will be that dramatically different then, for all of us, however unlikely it seems right now. And in the meantime, I'll be out there fighting for a vision of Britain where we can all pursue our hopes and dreams someday._

 _I don't know where I'll be sent once I've enlisted, or if I'll be able to tell anyone outside my family where I'm located, so this may have to be my last letter for some time. But write to Sandy, if you don't hear from me, and he'll be able to let you know how I am, even if I can't write to you myself. I hope that you're doing well, and I look forward to seeing you after I've seen some action and amassed some good war stories of my own to tell you. Until we meet again, take care, and know that, per the motto of the august establishment that I am leaving until who-knows-when,_ souvent me souviens — _I'll remember you often._

 _Yours,  
Julie_

The final page shook in Ellen's hands as she refolded the paper with trembling fingers. She leaned her head back against the soft upholstery of the chair and closed her eyes. After a moment or two of absolute stillness, she took in a sharp breath that she exhaled slowly. Then she opened her eyes, unfolded all three letters, re-read each and refolded them in turn.

If Mary even heard Ellen descend from the Upper Reading Room, she wisely let Ellen be. The nurse moved briskly through the kitchen and slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind her. She walked purposefully to the centre of the footbridge over the Fearn, then leaned her forearms against the railing and looked down to the gently flowing waters below. The suspension bridge rocked slightly side to side under her weight, as it was wont to do, and its dark shadow blotted out the shimmers of silver on the surface of the water, where the flow reflected the glint of the iron sky above.

Ellen stood there for a moment that seemed to stretch an eternity, keenly aware of the tingle of chill against her cheeks, the unsteady sway below her feet, the burble of the water below the bridge. Once upon a time, Euan had been banned from crossing this very footbridge, banned for being the wrong class in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the small world around Strathfearn had shifted just enough that summer of 1938 to counteract that wrong. Julie had seen to that. Julie had always been the type to set her jaw stubbornly and nudge the world in the direction that she wanted it to go, sometimes with an endearing and absurd level of naïveté.

For a long moment, Ellen let her mind drift longingly through her memories of that brash, foolish, wonderful girl. She recalled with a sudden clarity the warm pressure of Julie's fingers entwined in her own, the glint of sunshine on her golden hair, the pleading awkwardness with which she had begged Ellen's attention when they first met.

 _And fare thee weel, my only Luve,  
And fare thee weel, a while..._

 _Oh, Queenie._

With one swift motion, Ellen brought Julie's letters to her lips, then flung them down into the Fearn. The water quickly claimed the white pages, their crisp folds erased as each letter relaxed into the shape of the trembling surface of the river, and they floated swiftly away, to sink to the depths of the ooze and the pearl oysters. When Ellen was younger, she might have turned and rushed to the opposite railing to watch the pages as they passed under the bridge and drifted out of sight downstream. But she was older and wiser now, and she had learned when it is wisest to let go of things quickly and completely. A Traveller especially has to avoid letting herself get hopelessly mired in one dismal place.

Mary was just heating up another kettle of water when Ellen finally returned to the library. She looked up when Ellen stepped through the door and smiled.

"In case you wanted more tea," she clarified unnecessarily, gesturing towards the kettle. "And we don't have a guest room, sadly, but if you need someplace to stay the night, there's a cot that we can set up in the Upper Reading Room for you, after the library closes."

Ellen nodded.

"That will be perfect. Thank you." She paused. "Thank you for everything."

Mary shook her head.

"It's the very least that I can do, especially given how ignorant and insecure I once was. Besides, in times like these, who will look out for all of us, if we don't look out for each other?"

The kettle began whistling, and Mary pushed herself to her feet. Ellen fumbled mentally for the right words to express what she was thinking, but remained at a loss and wisely kept her mouth shut. Where would she have started, in the first place? Accepting Mary's apology, on the condition that she apologise to Euan, as well? Offering her own apology for fearing Mary's unusual features, as she once had? Indulging in more memories of Julie, when Ellen had just promised herself that she would only allow herself the time to mourn properly when the war was over? Broaching with Mary the idea that had slowly become clear to her, as she had stood on the bridge to Inverfearnie Island and said her goodbyes to Julie — Julie, who had been so filled with life and curiosity and expectation and determination, who had believed that anything was possible?

Mary set down two more cups for tea, one before herself and one before Ellen, and then placed the teapot between them. Ellen hesitantly lifted a book from the stack that she had placed out of the way on the table, glanced at Mary, and cracked it open when her host had nodded her assent. It was a murder mystery _—_ a few decades old, translated by a well-known English novelist, fast-paced and intrigue-filled and frivolous, and just what Ellen needed. After a few moments, Mary too sat down and picked up the Dickens that she had been reading when Ellen had returned. The two settled into a comfortable silence as the tea steeped.

Perhaps tomorrow Ellen would feel it was the right time to formally address and dismiss the old scores between herself and Mary. Perhaps tomorrow she would also have the courage to ask Mary if she and Sandy might help her identify scholarships to pay for university, so that she could begin planning and saving and forging the connections that she would need when the war was over. Perhaps she would even find it in her to go look at the glass case containing the Reliquary and the bracelet that had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, just to prove to herself that she could remember the best of Julie without becoming lost in her grief. She had come to Strathfearn seeking closure on one matter, after all, and she might as well find it on as many others as possible.

But the evening was falling fast outside, over the village, and over the ancient standing stanes, and over the floods and fields that had existed before all of them and would continue to exist long after. The Fearn flowed darker and colder beneath the iron footbridge, but in the morning both river and bridge would still be there. And so Ellen McEwen settled slowly and quietly into the soothing warmth and light of Mary Kinnaird's kitchen, where the only things audible were the occasional turn of a page, and the faint burble of the water flowing past outside, and from some distant corner of the library, the steady and inexorable ticking of a clock that Ellen alone could hear.


End file.
